2 Answers
2

Why not eliminate the select box and implement an auto complete box? There are plenty of plugins for jQuery that handle auto complete. You could even store the values in the JavaScript the eliminate the need to go back to the server as the user types.

FlexBox is very close to what I am looking for. It's performance with a high number of items (about 1000) is extremely bad though.
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BlaMAug 17 '09 at 16:19

(Yes, I could go the JSON only way, but it would not be possible to show the full list then)
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BlaMAug 17 '09 at 16:19

no way to break them up into small groups? maybe an ajax call query return based on the first letter entered?
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Phill PaffordAug 17 '09 at 17:54

I'm using FlexBox with a list of 10,000 items, and it is quite fast. Most likely, the delay is on the server side. As Phill Pafford suggested, filtering the list returned on every call is your best bet.
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Noah HeldmanOct 1 '10 at 17:22